- A former realtor bought a used flatbed trailer in April 2020 and spent a year building his tiny mobile home.
- The owner, Stephanie Fisher, estimates that she spent $15,000 on the entire construction—which she built by hand.
- She has been traveling for the past six months and is living out of the tiny house, and plans to go on more trips.
Some people baked cookies during the lockdown, while others enjoyed their favorite television shows. And then there’s Stephanie Fisher, who built a tiny mobile home from scratch.
Stephanie Fischer / My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider
Stephanie Fischer / My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider
Stephanie Fisher stands with her little wagon home, which she named ‘Misty’. (Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
Fischer, who was born in Germany but has lived in the US for the past two decades, was a real estate agent in Vancouver, Washington, when the pandemic hit.
When her business slowed down dramatically, she decided to keep herself busy by starting a new project – she wanted to build a small mobile home in which she could travel across the country.
“I’m a person. I need to interact with people, but with social distancing, I couldn’t do that. So I came up with building the trip home of my dreams,” Fisher told Insider. “Building Misty, my buggy, was a way for me to stay sane.”
Instead of converting an existing RV or bus, Fischer built his tiny house from the ground up. He started with a 7-by-12 flatbed trailer, which he bought secondhand.
Used flatbed trailer that Fisher bought in April 2020. (Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
“I initially wanted to build a tiny 200-square-foot house, but I wanted to travel again. With a tiny house of that size, it doesn’t tow very well, so I scaled it down That’s what you call ‘Wardo,’” Fischer said.
A wardo is a traditional Romantic caravan house usually elaborately decorated and mounted.
“I didn’t want to do a school bus conversion or anything. I wanted something that I could carry with a pickup truck, but leave it at a place that I love and I can go to groceries or other things without losing my place. Go get water,” he added.
Despite having some carpentry experience from remodeling his previous homes, Fisher was not a professional builder.
The wall frames are installed on the flatbed trailer. (Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
“I started doing research online so that I could get a basic idea of the whole manufacturing process and figure out where I should start,” Fisher said.
She didn’t plan a proper design for her tiny house, but her priority was to create something that was as close as possible, she said.
“All I knew was that I wanted it to be a little wider at the top than at the bottom, so it was on the outside. I also wanted a round roof and a sleeping loft,” she said.
After applying the framing, Fischer began installing his walls. To protect them from the elements, he waterproofed them with a wooden sealer.
Fischer assembling the walls of his wagon. (Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
“I was lucky enough to have bought the lumber just before COVID-19, or around that time, before it became so expensive,” Fischer said. “I found a lot of cedar and birch plywood, although I tried to use as little plywood as possible to keep it lightweight.”
Special care should be taken to choose the right material for the climate, he added. For example, cedar handles the moisture of the Pacific Northwest well, making it a suitable building material for his project.
Fischer said that each piece of wood he used was carefully sawed off, sanded, and glued or screwed together by hand.
“I think I went through two gallons of glue, and I only used screws. I didn’t use any nails except for the windows,” she said.
Since she was planning to travel and live in the tiny house while on the road, the walls had to be properly insulated.
Wagon walls include a layer of insulation. (Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
Fischer made four small windows—one on each side of the tiny house—to ventilate the space.
She also wanted the home to be completely off-grid, so she bought a portable solar panel to power items like her rechargeable LED lightbulb.
“I simplified a lot of things because it was so hard to get professional help,” Fisher said. “I had two people to install the solar panels and all that stuff, so I went with a portable solar panel instead.”
Before starting the carpentry work, Fisher carefully marked out his ideal floor plan and set aside space for his sleeping loft and kitchenette.
(Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
“I traveled the west coast in a small Dodge van when I was younger, and I know how limited space can be,” Fisher said.
She said that when creating cabinets for the tiny home, she focused on creating enough storage space for all of her belongings—including a spice rack.
Fisher did not put a bathroom in the house. Instead, she chose to use a flushable camping toilet because she didn’t want moisture in the house.
She has an outdoor shower set that she uses, which has a portable water heater that she can attach to the shower head, she said.
Fischer did almost all the work himself, only outsourcing the metal roof, propane gas pipe and trailer brakes to a professional contractor.
(Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
Sometimes, her son or friend would also stop by to help, Fisher said.
The hardest part of the build was pouring the epoxy which he tried to do on his kitchen countertop. It was the first time she was working with epoxy and she had a terrible leak, she said.
“I tried to stop it with duct tape, creeping down where the sink area is, and I ended up with epoxy everywhere around me, in the hair,” she said.
Because of the leak, Fisher didn’t have enough of the original epoxy that he used, and he tried to mix it with a different product—which was a big mistake.
“The whole counter turned gray, so I had to chisel everything out again and sand it with a planer,” she said. “it was horrible.”
Fischer replaced the original wood finish on the exterior and created a fold-out deck where she could relax and enjoy the outdoors.
(Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
“I wanted something low-maintenance, and I didn’t want to paint the outside because paint always peels,” Fischer said.
Despite this, her favorite part of the construction process was building the shell of the mobile home and gluing it together from almost nothing.
“I progressed a lot faster on the exterior than on the interiors. It was fun too, but I think only building the structure was the main attraction,” he said.
Fischer began construction of his small mobile home in April 2020 and completed construction a year later in May 2021. He is estimated to have spent $15,000 in total.
The entire interior of the wagon. (Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
He said that due to carpel tunnel syndrome, Fischer was only able to work at home for three hours a day.
“My goal was to go to a little house festival in San Diego, and I actually ended it the day I left for that trip,” Fisher said. “It was my first trip, and it was like 1,500 miles—which is crazy to do that on the first trip.”
Fisher also has a YouTube channel where she uploads videos about her journey, and it currently has over 2,200 subscribers.
Fisher was able to fit a fridge, a cooking range, a sink, and even a full-size memory foam mattress inside the tiny house.
A collage showing a close up of the sleeping and kitchen area. (Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
She added hidden cabinets to her built-in bench seats and created a pull-out countertop where she could take her meals. There’s also a crawl space under the sleeping loft where she keeps her clothes.
Under the sink she keeps her water containers, which include 10 gallons of fresh water and a five-gallon container for household wastewater.
Reflecting on her experience building a small mobile home, Fisher has some advice for those who want to follow in her footsteps: Don’t worry about making mistakes.
“If you build with wood, it’s very forgiving. I mean, anything can be fixed,” she said.
Fisher has been traveling with her dog, Ralphie, for the past six months and is living out of her small mobile home. They have so far visited places around Washington and Oregon.
Fisher travels with her dog, Ralphie, to her small mobile home, which she names Misty. (Stephanie Fischer/My Tiny Wagon via Business Insider)
“With gas prices, I’m living more local rather than traveling across the country,” Fischer said.
Although she has a home in Vancouver that she shares with five housewives, Fisher says she hasn’t returned much this year.
“After the social distancing measures were lifted, I felt really social, so I attended a lot of events and volunteered a lot,” Fisher said. “I meet up with other Van guys, and I’m invited to stay with them somewhere. They’ll say, ‘Oh, we’re going camping. Do you want to come?’ And I just go with the flow.”
